H2 + O2 = business + ££ for BOC
15 Jan 2000
It's been a good month for BOC. The venerable UK industrial gases company has forged a global agreement with contractors Foster Wheeler to supply hydrogen users in a range of process industries, and has also landed its largest-ever contract, to supply gases to a copper smelter and refinery in Indonesia.
The Foster Wheeler agreement covers the development, ownership and operation of a network of hydrogen production facilities, which will supply refineries, chemical and petrochemical works, and the steel industry. The companies will also collaborate on the marketing of syngas and carbon monoxide produced by the plants, as well as other by-products such as electricity, steam, treated water and other gases.
The deal is an extension of a joint venture between the two companies formed two years ago, which only covered the Americas. The companies are soon to complete the first plant to be built under this agreement: a £32 million, 50 million cubic feet/day facility in Amuay, Venezuela, which will supply the Lagoven refinery.
Meanwhile, BOC is set to invest some $95 million on new facilities to fulfil its biggest ever contract - supplying Indonesia's first copper smelting and refining complex with oxygen and electricity. BOC, along with a local partner, Garama Group, is to build the country's largest air separation plant, with an oxygen capacity above 1000t/day, beside the smelter at Gresik, East Java.
The companies have also contracted US firm Black and Veatch to build a steam-and-power plant, running off natural gas and the steam recovered from the smelting process. The project is set to come on-stream in the second half of next year.
